Computational investigation of flow control by means of tubercles on Darrieus wind turbine blades

• Published in: Journal of Physics: Conference Series
• Main Authors: Ozdamar, G., Sevinc, K., Senturk, U., Ozdamar, A.
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: Iop Publishing Ltd 2015
• Subjects: Humpback Whale
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11454/50978; https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/640/1/012034

WOS: 000376508100034 26th IUPAP Conference on Computational Physics (CCP) -- AUG 11-14, 2014 -- Boston Univ, George Sherman Union, Boston, MA This work presents the current status of the computational study of the boundary layer control of a vertical axis wind turbine blade by modifying the blade geometry for use in wind energy conversion. The control method is a passive method which comprises the implementation of the tubercle geometry of a humpback whale flipper onto the leading edge of the blades. The baseline design is an H-type, three-bladed Darrieus turbine with a NACA 0015 cross-section. Finite-volume based software ANSYS Fluent was used in the simulations. Using the optimum control parameters for a NACA 634-021 profile given by Johari et al. (2006), turbine blades were modified. Three dimensional, unsteady, turbulent simulations for the blade were conducted to look for a possible improvement on the performance. The flow structure on the blades was investigated and flow phenomena such as separation and stall were examined to understand their impact on the overall performance. For a tip speed ratio of 2.12, good agreement was obtained in the validation of the baseline model with a relative error in time-averaged power coefficient of 1.05%. Modified turbine simulations with a less expensive but less accurate turbulence model yielded a decrease in power coefficient. Results are shown comparatively. IUPAP, APS, Boston Coll, Clark Univ, Harvard Univ, Inst Appl Computat Sci, NE Univ, Univ Massachusetts Amherst, Univ Massachusetts Boston, Intel Corp, Cambridge Univ Press, Elsevier, Inst Phys Publishing, Amer Inst Phys Publishing